


Just a Memory

by CaptainAmelia22



Series: Rescuemepotts' Jaegercon Bingo Card-#4 [2]
Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Aftermath, F/M, Jaegercon Bingo, Tumblr: jaegercon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-07
Updated: 2013-08-07
Packaged: 2017-12-22 17:19:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/915946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainAmelia22/pseuds/CaptainAmelia22
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mako and Raleigh visit the Hong Kong Museum of Resistance which is situated in the old Hong Kong Shatterdome and meet up with some old, old friends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just a Memory

“What is it Pop?” the little boy asks the day his parents bring him to Hong Kong to meet an old friend or two.  

His voice echoes through the mostly empty bay and his father glances down, a small smile on his lips and a deep sadness in his eyes that the little boy is too young and too precious to understand.  His father hopes he’ll never _have_ to understand his parent’s sorrow and loss.

That would mean they failed, all of them, in keeping the world safe.  

The little boy turns his gaze from his father’s dark blue eyes upwards into the stony gaze of the hulking monster towering over him and he swallows nervously, his fingers tight around his father’s and his mother’s.

She’s smiling gently at the towering robot they stand under, her eyes calculating and thoughtful, almost as if she’s taking stock of what exactly the hulk is missing and what may be wrong in its long and ancient joints.  

She looks like she’s just set eyes on a long-forgotten friend and suddenly remembered how much she missed them.

The little boy still does not understand.

“Is-is it a monster?” he whispers and his father chuckles before bending to scoop him gently into his arms.

“No Chuck, she’s not a monster.  She’s just really old and cranky,” he says quietly, his lips buried in his son’s curly black hair.  He can’t take his eyes from her, even now and it’s more painful than he could ever imagine.  Memories...

Memories of this hunk of metal falling under the Pacific while her crew drowned and a monster clawed into her innards wash over him once more and he closes his eyes and rests his forehead gently on his son’s temple.  “She’s not a monster-she’s a guardian,” he murmurs, too softly for either his partner or their son to hear.  

Mako hears him though.

She always hears him.  

Always.

“This is a Jaeger, Yancy Pentecost Becket,” Mako says, her fingers rising to brush the steel ankle of the long silent Mark I before them.  “One of the first, actually.”  She’s smiling, so lovingly, upon all of them and suddenly the now-defunct Shatterdome doesn’t seem so bleak, so lonely.  The memorials lining its walls seem to shine a bit brighter, stand a little straighter, as if they know the warriors who fought alongside them are here for a final goodbye.  “Can you say hello Chuck?  Say hello to Cherno Alpha?”

Raleigh breathes a sigh of relief at her subtle take-over and finally meets Cherno’s blank gaze.

The Chinese have done an amazing job of restoring her-in restoring and recreating all of the Final Four-and it’s eerily similar to his final return to the Hong Kong Shatterdome so many long years ago.  

He can still remember Cherno being wheeled into this very bay, her shoulders barely making it past the massive doors and that old feeling of wonder and awe washes over him again as he takes in her hulking mass.  She’s bigger than memory serves and the only thing missing from her, from _all_ of them, are her pilots.

The Siberian Wall is their next destination-for goodbyes of a different nature.  

But for now, it’s the Jaegers’ turns.  As is only fitting.

All of the Final Four are here, surrounding them, silently guarding the shores of Hong Kong against something that is only a nightmarish memory.  The Chinese were always the most welcoming, the most innovative of the PPDC-he and the other rangers were not that surprised when the Chinese government said they would gladly claim any and all defunct Jaegers and their blueprints in hopes of restoring an international legacy.  

The world let them, sentimentality about that point in their history not really that important and so they built a lasting memorial to the PPDC and its great warriors right here in the ancient Shatterdome-Marshall Pentecost’s last stand.  

And that’s why he came with Mako and their son.

To say goodbye and to see his girl one last time.

He tries to remember how to breathe.  

Striker Eureka’’s gaze is as cold as ever on his back, reminding him of that last take on the Breach and his arms tighten around his son’s body as he remembers a begrudging nod of thanks and a fiesty bulldog barking at his heels.  

The Chinese had to recreate her and one other entirely from scratch.  There was nothing left of Hansens’ Mark V after the Breach.  Somehow they got Striker’s temperament right though and he wonders if he and Mako strapped into the harnesses in her head, if they’d be able to drift together once again.

He shivers and his eyes shift to the next Jaeger, just to Striker’s left; Crimson Typhoon is mostly original, a testament to Chinese construction and her triple blades glint dangerously in the half-light of the Shatterdome.  A basketball sits between her feet, a fine layer of dust on its surface and he has to take a deep breath and try to ignore the old guilt.   Survivor’s guilt, Mako says, but guilt nonetheless.

Then, as his son continues to gaze into Cherno’s beady red eyes he hears the Kaidanovsky’s last, desperate, cries for help once more. Sees Cherno’s massive body slipping beneath the waves, her face and chest torn through by acid and claws.

And he forgets to breathe.  

“...they were created to help us against the monsters, Chuck,” Mako is saying as their little boy stretches in Raleigh’s arms to pet Cherno’s shin and he tries to anchor himself to her voice, to find her in the drift, to stop chasing the rabbit but he can’t.  He can’t...

So many memories.

So many lost.  

“...the Jaegers were created to help us win against the bad guys who wanted to hurt us and they were so strong, so powerful it took- _Raleigh!”_

He’s panting, gasping for air, his fingers locked tight around one of Cherno’s ancient hydraulic lifts just beneath her ankle and he can’t look away from _her._

She’s standing in the shadows, just past Cherno, as was ever the case, even in the old days, and he swears he’s not shaking as she glares belligerently at him, almost as if she’s asking where he’s been all this time.

God, the Chinese even got the damn things’ personalities down.

“Oh god,” he breathes as Mako takes their son gently from his arms and cups his cheek, her dark eyes pools of understanding and sorrow in her pale face.  “Gipsy...”

Mako rests her forehead against his and he realizes she hasn’t glanced in Gipsy Danger’s direction, not since they stepped through the towering doors onto the silent launch bay’s floor.  She can’t look at her.

And he can’t look away.

They each have different nightmares about Gipsy, different but the same, each lost in the drift.  

“You should introduce Chuck to her,” Mako whispers, for only him to hear and she kisses his cheek as he straightens, still gripping tight to Cherno’s ankle.  “Go to her Raleigh,” she says as he takes his son’s hand in his and prepares to face his old girl once again.  

Mako stays close to Striker and Cherno-she gives him this chance-this only chance-to say goodbye.  

“You’ve learned about Jaegers in school, haven’t you Chuck?  Learned about why we needed them?” he asks as they walk slowly towards the elegant lady in the corner and his son nods, eyes wide and locked on Gipsy.  Raleigh’s lips twitch in a tiny smile at the sight and he knows...

Knows his boy is just like his Pop-the Becket men never could turn down a nuclear core or an alloy free construction.

Even now.  

“The Jaegers were created in the old days because we needed something strong, something powerful to fight against our enemies-”

“The Kaiju!” his little boy crows and Raleigh’s grin turns a little brittle at the way the word echoes dangerously around the ancient metal monsters surrounding them; he can almost feel Striker’s gaze shifting to settle once more on his back and he swears Cherno’s right fist tightens a bit as his son’s voice finally dies away.

Yancy’d always told him the Jaegers could think for themselves, could dream and he’s seen enough to believe that.  

The Chinese have gotten everything else right in their massive restoration project.

Might as well have gotten this right too.

They’re just under Gipsy’s shadow now, coming so close to her he can almost smell the familiar synthetic lubricant Tendo Choi created just for her so she could face the Alaska elements better and he tries to regather his thoughts.  

His son is hovering just behind him, suddenly shy as they near Gipsy’s left ankle and Raleigh bends so he can be eye-to-eye with his boy.   

“It’s all right Chuck,” he says gently, his hand rising to cup his son’s face.  He hasn’t torn his wide eyed gaze from her towering mass and Raleigh can tell he’s lost, as lost as he himself was the first time he saw Gipsy.  He sighs and tries to keep from drifting.  “She’s an old friend, she won’t hurt you,” he says fiercely and his son finally looks at him.

And smiles.

“I know Pop,” he says, so very seriously and he’s stroking Raleigh’s cheek now, his tiny hand gentle against the scruff there and Raleigh shivers as this new version of Gipsy Danger towers ever-silent at his back.  “She’s your girl,” Yancy “Chuck” Pentecost Becket says to his father at the feet of the last remaining reminder of an era of nightmares and heros.  “And she’ll always keep you safe, no matter what happens.”    

Raleigh forgets to breathe again.

And as his son places his hand gently upon Gipsy’s ankle, he swears he can hear a ghostly but familiar voice murmuring, _Drift complete._  

 


End file.
